BYD Still Struggling To Sell As Many EVs As A Year Ago

It is a problem that a year ago would have almost been unthinkable. For April 2017, BYD once again was unable to sell as many plug-in electric cars in China as year ago – its the 5th consecutive monthly drop against previous numbers…after always having shown large gains previously.

BYD e5 etaxi

The sales drop last month amounted to 19%.

The overall result of 5,815 plug-ins sold was also lower than in March, when it seemed that BYD had started to sort out government-induced demand problems. Apparently, not quite the case.

Most of the sales for April were all-electric cars – 3,972, while plug-in hybrids takes just 1,843.

One thing is for sure, if China wants to hit its goal of ~800,000 total new plug-ins on the road in 2017 (commercial vehicles included), it will need BYD to turn things around…and fast!

BYD sales breakdown:

e5 – 2,512 (4,489 YTD)

Tang – 1,534 (4,340 YTD)

e6 – 821 (2,080 YTD)

Qin EV300 – 639 (2,685 YTD)

Qin – 309 (940 YTD)

After four months, BYD has delivered less than 15,000 plug-in cars (compared to about 24,000 in 2016).

12 responses to "BYD Still Struggling To Sell As Many EVs As A Year Ago"

BYD is a great company but I think they have missed the mark with their customers and they were the leading EV company the last couple of years due to a lack of options from prospective EV buyers…

BYD is wasting engineering time and money makin ICE, plugin hybrid, and BEV models of all their cars… China buyers are largely ignoring plugin hybrids and buying BEVs…
China buyera are also largely buying lower range BEVs and not the higher range ones BYD is selling so the shouhd offer battery choices and not plug in hybrids…
BYD is also trying to be luxorious and performance oriented and most EV buyers dont care about 0 to 60 times and no one wants a luxury BYD when they can get a BMW…

BYD fell into a trap and is tring to be something they are not… I think BYD will do a little better when a couple of their new small SUV BEV become available but generally think they will continue to lose EV market share to an increasing number of EV competiors unless they realign their products to sell to average Joes or Wangs at a reduced cost…

This is the problem with sales being dependent on government mandates. That applies to all countries, not just China and Norway and the U.S.

While it’s beneficial to use government subsidies to “prime the pump” of the EV revolution, for the benefit of clean air for all citizens, the market should be able to go ahead and develop on its own after the pump is primed. If EVs can’t do that, if they can’t compete on their own with gasmobiles, then that demonstrates that EV tech — or more specifically, battery tech — needs more development before EVs can capture a large segment of the market.

As an EV advocate I would like to believe that EVs have “arrived”, but a realistic look at the state of the art shows that, sadly, EVs are still “not ready for prime time”. As others have noted, it’s beginning to look like EV sales won’t really take off until sometime between 2020 and 2025.

I think most most manufacturers are playing with PHEV/BEV to make sure they learn the game, but are waiting for the price of storage to drop (and maybe charger infrastructure to expand) before making EVs a core piece of their business strategy.

I was just looking up some of the cars listed to get an idea of what the market is there. And it’s bizarre, these vehicles are rather suspect.

Look at the e6, which supposedly has a 75kWh battery (phosphate) and a range of 400km. Well, sometimes they say 300km. And sometimes they say 48kWh. And sometimes they say 60kWh. And maybe it’s 100HP. Or maybe it’s 150HP. Or many other figures.

Why do Chinese companies have to be so sketchy? I know the EV business can be sketchy at times but if I’m a Chinese company looking to go global I’m going to do everything I can to break from both Chinese and EV sketchiness.

They had different prototypes and versions over time, and plans were changing. Look at Tesla, it also had several versions of Model S with different batteries and motors and even different plugs in different continents.

Once you look at specific, approved for sale model in specific market, data is also quite specific.

The e6 has had battery upgrades and I beleive a motor upgrade too but the range can be confusing because China uses an unrealistic driving range estimations but some people and publications give the real driving range instead…
One e6 taxi has reportedly gone over 600,000 miles so if true there batteries are not Nissan quality…
And BYD is far from a schetcy company…

We’re talking about the company who copied the Corolla styling with the F3DM, right?

Anyway, if you’re far from sketchy shouldn’t you make the most effort to ensure this is obvious instead of looking a lot like other, more sketchy companies? They have not done a good job of this with their messaging.

I was in China last week and I have to say the newer byd’s look much better than the older ones. I don’t know what they could price them at if they exported them but I think if they were cheap they would sell quite well. I didn’t get to drive one but byd are basically where the Korean and French manufacturers were 10-20 years ago in terms of appearance but they are electric. I would think if they could offer them in states for the price of a base Camry they would sell in decent enough numbers.